The Darksiders II Website has details on plans to address some player requests in patches for Darksiders II (thanks VG247). Here's word on what's in store for the PC edition of Vigil Games' action/RPG:

We are working on fixes for a number of bugs which can potentially block progression that have come to our attention, while also exploring adding additional features you have been asking for. This work includes vsync updates, improved shadow map resolution, X-axis options and additional keyboard mapping options (amongst other community requests). We hope to roll out a number of patches to address these issues in the weeks to come.

I'm going to wait for patches before I decide to buy but I did enjoy DS1.

I played the whole game with M/KB and thought the controls worked really well for it. If there is a camera problem with the M/KB as I have heard, then I'm not going to buy it because having the camera fully rotatable with M/KB is a major advantage. If it is 'stuck' to your back and has no options to change the way it works I'm going to have to pass. I don't play any games with controllers. The only controller peripheral I own is my flightstick.

Perhaps if you're playing with a controller, the cameras are the same, but not so with KB/M, which is something I lauded about in the first, and is annoying as shit in the second...

I thoroughly enjoyed #1 (hence the pre-order), but just can't seem to 'get into' #2... For example, I ripped through Prototype 2 in 3 days (22h played), and practically have had to force myself to play D2, with 5h since whenever it launched.

I don't mind the loot system so much, but I gather more crap than I do in D3 heh...

Again, I'm really not seeing this huge discrepancy between the two games. The combat was the same, the exploration was the same, the platforming was the same, the puzzles were the same, the boss fights were the same (and no, there's more than one large boss fight), the visuals were the same, the camera's the same, the writing was equally forgettable... the only real differences were the loot system and open world. I suppose that if you really hated those two things, it could make DS2 worse than DS1 in your eyes but you'd have to really hate them. In all other respects, DS2 is just more of DS1.

I didn't enjoy Darksiders 2 nearly as much as Darksiders. The combat was off (owing mostly to the TERRIIIBBBLLLEEEE camera), the loot mechanic was a total gimmick, the overworlds were terribly boring to traverse (fast travel or no), the bosses were awful (seriously? First major boss is this huge monstrosity and all the other ones are like three feet tall?), the writing/characters/plot were junk, the visuals were particularly dated, the platforming was godawful... I could go on. The only thing positive that stood out was Jesper Kyd's work.

After all the work/time/marketing that went into this game I expected so much more.

What difficulty did you play on? Not sure how much difference there is between Normal and Apocalyptic but I'm guessing Apocalyptic is quite a bit harder. And did you do the side dungeons? The side dungeons were significantly harder than the story dungeons and there were often times where you'd be surrounded by enemies who both do a ton of damage and have a large attack radius. Fists/armblades would not have been as effect as the double blades/hammers/maces/axes in those cases.

As for rolling, it's all about spacing them out correctly. If you just mash the dodge button, then yes, you'll stop moving at the end of the third one. However, if you space them out right, you will keep rolling. It's not uncommon for dodging to be faster than walking in games like this, kinda like bunny-hopping is faster than walking in a lot of shooters.

I just find it hard to believe that you could enjoy the first game but not the second. The core gameplay mechanics (including the controls) are almost exactly the same. Almost every complaint you listed here could be said of the first game. The only major changes are the loot system and open-world. Then again, a lot of people apparently loved ME1 but hated ME2, even though the core gameplay was almost exactly the same between the two.

The large weapons did hit hard, but I found them pointless because the enemies could attack you between swings. With the fist/armblades, you basically juggled the enemy until they were dead, and the attacks moved you forward enough that it usually evaded any other enemy attacks. They were just superior in every situation that I encountered.

The skilltree is useless when compared to the "mash Y button" technique with a fist/armblade, as I easily bested every combat encounter that way. The only other skill necessary is dodge. I saw no need to throw any other skill into the mix, since you can't really improve upon 100% effectiveness. I think perhaps you had emergency situations because you didn't use the fist/armblades to begin with. I know I had them when I was trying to master the reaper/axe/mace. Those buff skills description said they lasted 8 seconds... No thank you. The controls are awful enough. Don't want to be rebuffing constantly.

I noticed that rolling was faster than walking... but really... how dumb is that? Plus, if you roll 3 times consecutively, you did some sort of jump at the end that had a recovery time, so you sort of negate the faster movement.

I found the boss patterns and had a plan of attack, I simply didn't find it enjoyable. It wasn't difficult, just tedious. However, different strokes for different folks and all that.

You are correct, I didn't make it past the first world. I was "demo'ing" the game to see if it was worth a purchase. The core dynamics that I didn't like are not likely to change during the course of the game. The game looked nice, the story was interesting, and I really wanted to like it. I played the first and enjoyed that, but Darksiders 2 just seemed like a chore to me =(

Going to have to disagree with many of your points. The fist and armblade weapons are not the only useful weapons in the game. The slower weapons like the hammer, axe and mace do more damage, have a wider attack radius and knock enemies back/stun them. As in any loot-driven game, the effectiveness of any given weapon is highly dependent on its stats. My possessed double blades are awesome because they not only have health steal, but also increase crit chance, crit damage and chance to execute. The double-blades have attacks which can land a ton of hits in quick succession, making them conducive to crits.

As for the skill tree, it isn't useless at all. I've been investing solely in the left side of the tree and it makes a big difference in combat. The teleport dash is good for getting out of corners and healing yourself in emergencies. The skill that increases your strength, crit chance and crit damage is also very useful.

I do agree with the horse being pretty slow, though. However, you can perform a charge to speed him up temporarily and the game has fast travel. On foot, you can increase your movement speed by rolling. As for boss fights, I thought they were enjoyable. There was a decent amount of variety and I never found any of the boss fights cheap. As with any game, it all comes down to learning the patterns, figuring out a plan of attack and then executing.

On a side note, judging by your boss comment, it seems like you didn't make it very far through the game. In fact, you didn't even make it past the first world, so you're forming your opinion on about 15% of the game.

I "demoed" Darksiders II, and I really wanted to like it, but there were just too many things wrong with the game to warrant me buying it. I uninstalled the "demo" after only a couple hours of play, with no desire to play it again. These fixes they are discussing don't affect any of the core gameplay issues that I found.

1. Overall slow and sluggish feel to the game. The horse barely felt faster than the main character. The main character's speed was somewhere between 1950's zombie drag, and stray 3 legged dog trot. In some boss fights, where you had to move across the room to get to a rock/egg/etc, I was shaking my head at how slow it felt.

2. Inconsistent feel to the "parkour". I could claw my way up sheer walls, but couldn't jump up on a platform that was waist high. I also thought it was ridiculous that I could run up and across walls and ledges faster than I could walk across flat ground...

3. Weapons were not well designed. It didn't take long to realize that the best weapons were the fist/armblade style, and there was no reason to use the others. I only used the life leech reaper blades to get some hp back if I needed it, otherwise it was all the fist/armblades.

4. Convoluted controls. I used an XBox 360 controller on my PC to play this, and the default and unchangeable control scheme was ridiculous. Left Trigger for lock on, and Left Bumper + A/B/X/Y for skills? Seriously? I'm fairly dexterous, but ugh, this just felt awful.

5. Uninteresting and useless skill tree. Coupled with the ridiculous "wrath" cost of using skills, they certainly don't change the outcome of any fight. In fact, the Teleport Dash skill was actually detrimental, because it turned your character around and the camera did not change direction, so you were essentially fighting backwards after using it.

6. Uninteresting and useless attack upgrades. Most attack upgrades were for the reaper blades, and since they were fairly useless compared to fist weapons... there was little point anyway. Most of the upgrades for the secondary (fist) weapons had button press requirements of "while holding down LT, move stick up, hold Y, jump, turn around 3 times, touch your nose...." etc, so I never got them. Didn't seem to matter, since the basic "mash Y endlessly" strategy worked well in every situation.

7. Tedious boss fights. There is a difference between challenge and tedium. The point where I just gave up completely on the game was a boss fight that had you dodging massive damage charging attacks from the boss that basically homed in on you, jumping over ae ground attacks, throwing a bomb that fell down from said ground attack, then running (dragging/trotting/whatever) to attack a sphere that fell out of this otherwise invulnerable boss, but also having 3-4 spawned minions come between you and said sphere that you had to dispatch. Oh, and did I mention that the main character runs really slow, and that the sphere is only vulnerable to attack for a few seconds?